Walmart Tests Robot Fry Cook To Work In Its Delis

Flippy, the robot kitchen assistant, has a new job. Created by Miso Robotics, the autonomous fry cook and hamburger flipper is in the early stages of joining Walmart. The company is testing Flippy at its Culinary and Innovation Center in Bentonville, Arkansas, to see if it can handle the more mundane tasks in the stores' delis.

Designed to collaborate with humans in a kitchen, Flippy has a robotic arm attached to a cart on wheels. It can work the grill or the fryer by automatically switching between tools attached to the robotic arm. Flippy can recognize and monitor food items because of cloud-connected artificial intelligence, laser sensors and eyes that contain 3D and thermal scanners.

Flippy the robot grilling

Miso Robotics

Flippy cannot manage a kitchen or deli on its own, so you will not see the robot working alone at Walmart. "Our whole thing is not about job replacement, right," David Zito, CEO of Miso Robotics, told Yahoo Finance. "What we want to do is assist the hardworking linemen cooks and chefs in America with tools to give them the ability to faithfully reproduce while taking the burden off some of these more repetitive and mundane tasks."

In Walmart's delis, Flippy may be in charge of frying frozen food and making sure it is cooked evenly. Another employee would handle the food after frying and make sure a customer receives it. There is a strong chance that customers would not interact with or even see Flippy as they place an order at the deli.

This is not the first job for Flippy. The autonomous robot previously worked at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles as a frying assistant. It prepared chicken and tater tots for hungry fans while working alongside the stadium's food service employees. Flippy did not replace or eliminate any of the workers at Dodger Stadium. "The robotic kitchen assistant helps us more quickly and safely cook perfectly crispy chicken tenders and tater tots. It’s amazing to see the kitchen assistant and team members working together, and the consistency of product is incredible," Robin Rosenberg, Vice President and Chef de Cuisine for the hospitality company Levy, said.

Prior to Flippy's gig at Dodger Stadium, it worked as a grill cook for CaliBurger in Pasadena. You can still see Flippy in action from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. every day at the CaliBurger Pasadena location and taste one of the burger patties it helps cook. "We have demonstrated that Flippy can work on our standard equipment and meet high volume demand with substantially greater cooking consistency than our kitchens that have not yet installed Flippy." Tony Lomelino, Chief Technology Officer of CaliBurger, said.

"Additionally, we have developed a program to retrain our restaurant staff to serve as 'Chef Techs' that work alongside Flippy and monitor the related software and hardware systems. We expect these skills will be useful for employees across our chain to secure higher income jobs that require human/robotic interaction in the future restaurant industry and other industries," Lomelino explained.

You can expect to see Flippy in more restaurants, delis and other locations with kitchens in the future. As the industry shifts toward more automation and artificial intelligence, robots will become a bigger part of meal preparation.